Friend of La Música
by Calworks
Summary: La Música, the spirit of music, has been with Miguel since the beginning. [Daily Drabble, August 2, 2018]


**Title: Friend of La Música  
** **Category** : Coco (2017)  
 **Prompt** : "Fly" by Maddie and Tae  
 **Summary** : La Música, the spirit of music, has been with Miguel since the beginning.  
 **Words** : 646  
 **Notes** : If you haven't read Miguel and the Grand Harmony, find a way to do so! Find a library, find it online, find it in a store—whatever, if you love Coco, it's worth the read. And it's narrated by La Música, spirit of music, which is where this whole idea came from. I will definitely be expounding on this idea in a longer story someday.

* * *

"Where there is music, there is color. And where there is color, there is life."  
~ _Miguel and the Grand Harmony_

And where there is life, there is La Música.

La Música loves Santa Cecilia, loves the way its foundations, its very air is woven with music. Always, in Santa Cecilia, there is a place for her wherever she dwells, a song for her however she feels. From the blood-thrumming colors of the mariachis playing in the plaza to the comfortable beat of the shoemakers working in their shop, the music of Santa Cecilia is as wild and colorful as ever music can be.

La Música does not pick favorites. She loves the stern grandmother and the rhythm she makes unwittingly with her tools as much as she loves the kind mariachi and the songs he plays lovingly on his guitar. However…

She flits into the attic above the zapatería.

Every day, she finds a way to visit this boy. It's hard, and it's not always possible—not a voice sings in his house and not a single instrument resides within its walls. She can only come to him in quiet notes blown on glass bottles and the radios of passing trucks; she can only come to him in the tattoo of shoes on the ground and the hum of far away voices. She coaxes and she pleads and she calls until finally he finds his way into a quiet corner where he can hum, or walks past a man playing a requinto on a doorstep, or sneaks off to Mariachi Plaza where they can really have some fun. The best of times are when he musters the courage to climb his way to Their Secret Place—the place of candles and cassettes and strings on a handmade guitar.

She was there when he made that guitar. She led him to the parts, guided his hands as he pieced it together, blessed its very strings.

She was there as he learned the notes by ear, learned the fingering by watching carefully. One of her favorite places is on his shoulder, feeling him get lost in the music—the life—the color—

She has been with him since the beginning. She calls him 'Friend.'

Today, his song summons her. He's in the attic, tuning his handmade guitar, and she fills the air around him, joyful, beckoning him to the TV. As always, he follows her without question, and he plays her love, her contentment, on blessed guitar strings. For a moment, they can both be happy.

That evening, as she hangs around in the swish of fabric and distant violin, he calls her suddenly—a thumb on a guitar string. She rushes to him, confused and excited—he's not in the attic, he's outside, he's outside in the zapatería and _he's playing his guitar_ —

She feels it when the guitar shatters against the ground.

She feels her boy's heart break, feels something in her tremble and cry with the guitar's dying call. Her boy flees, and she first follows in the steady pounding of his footsteps, and then leads through the instruments and raised voices he rushes towards, beckoning him to the plaza. As always, he follows her without question.

He's desperate. Usually, on this night, she spends her evening bouncing merrily between the many musicians in this plaza, from guitar to guitar, but her boy, her friend, needs her, he needs music. She dogs his heels steadily as he seeks an instrument, trying to draw him back into the grand harmony of the town, feeling him slowly fall away from it.

She finally draws his attention in the drumbeats of the fireworks.

The boy has always reminded her of another músico, from long ago—a man as much her friend, as much her son, as this boy.

 _Take his guitar_ , she urges him. _It's meant for you._

As always, he follows her without question.


End file.
